Cox-fox Penalty Bonds Football Fans

January 16, 2000|By MIKE HOLTZCLAW Daily Press

Jim Edwards of Newport News made several stops Saturday afternoon before deciding where to watch the Washington Redskins' football game.

First he went to Signals, but the crowd wasn't sufficiently noisy. "Too many Dallas fans, too," Edwards said. He headed for Hooters but found it too crowded. So he finally settled on Mitty's, which opened several hours early to put the National Football Conference semifinal between Washington and Tampa Bay on its big screen.

"This is the perfect place to watch," Edwards said. "The screen is huge, the crowd is into it, and there's not a bad seat in the house. I don't think you could pick a better place to watch the game."

His first choice - simply watching the game at home - was out because of the ongoing dispute between Cox Cablevision and local Fox affiliate WVBT-TV, which in football parlance reached third- and-long status this weekend. While Fox shows such as "Ally McBeal," "The Simpsons" and "The X-Files" have their hardcore fan bases, Saturday's playoff game featuring the local favorite Redskins was the biggest broadcast to be affected by the Fox-Cox flap.

"I miss some of the shows, but it's not that big of a deal," said Janet Morris of Hampton, watching the game at Mitty's. "But I couldn't miss this game. This is the first time I really had to figure out what to do."

The dispute is over WVBT's demand for a lower channel assignment on the Cox lineup. The Fox affiliate had been at channel 43 and wanted to move down to channel 11, currently a public access channel, to provide more convenient access for "channel surfers." Cox refused to make the switch, and, as of Jan. 1, the Fox signal has not been available to local cable subscribers.

The two sides labored to reach a settlement in time for Saturday's much-anticipated game, but when negotiations failed, football fans who had not purchased a "rabbit-ears" antenna for their noncable TV sets were sent scrambling to local restaurants and sports bars to watch the game carried by Fox. The situation is expected to repeat itself today for the 12:35 p.m. game between the St. Louis Rams and the Minnesota Vikings.

At Linda's Sports Bar in York, a crowd of about two dozen regulars gathered in the early afternoon, casually watching the first NFL game - unaffected, since it was carried by CBS - in between games of darts and pool. But as the Redskins' 4:15 kickoff time neared, the crowd more than doubled. The moment the game began, the relatively quiet bar was filled with cheers, catcalls and shouts of encouragement to the players on the TV screens.

"I thought about just getting an antenna for my TV," said William Moore. "But then I stopped in here the other day and asked if they'd be carrying the game. I live close enough that I just walked here today. I figured it would be more fun to just buy myself a soda and watch it with other fans."

The cable confrontation was a popular topic of discussion during commercial breaks, as fans took the opportunity to vent their frustrations.

"The hell with Cox," said David Lynn of Hampton, sitting at the bar at Mitty's. "I'll start coming here every weekend. The whole thing ticks me off."

He broke off in mid-tirade to whoop it up as Redskins quarterback Brad Johnson completed a pass over the middle to Albert Connell. Then he turned to Edwards, sitting next to him, and considered a question: If the Cox-Fox situation is settled by next week, will they stay home or come back out to a sports bar to watch?

"That's a tossup," Edwards said. "I mean, this is a pretty good way to watch the game."

"It's awesome," agreed Lynn, "And it gives you an excuse to get out of the house."

Mike Holtzclaw can be reached at 928-6479 or by e-mail at mholtzclaw@dailypress.com